Pages

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

WHAT IS SPACE OPERA NOIR? AND HOW CAN I GET SOME?

What would you get if you combined the
literary DNA of STAR TREK, FIREFLY and BLADE RUNNER? Space opera noir, that’s what! And the third book in
my Interstellar Rescue series, Fools Rush In, which launches today.

If you write SFR you probably cut your teeth
on some form of space opera—TREK, STAR WARS, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, or any of
the science fiction written by the rocket-happy guys of the Golden Age of SF.
The term, of course, comes from the old days of radio, when laundry detergent
sold radio plays aimed at housewives: “soap operas.” Similarly melodramatic
Westerns earned the term “horse operas.” And naturally when square-jawed heroes
and buxom heroines took to space in serials like BUCK ROGERS, they fought nasty
aliens in “space operas.”

You might have to be a movie fan to know the
term “film noir,” though. Technically
it’s applies to mystery/thrillers made in the late Forties and Fifties using
low lighting (thus “noir” or black), shadowy settings and dramatic use of black-and-white cinematography as a symbol of the dark underbelly of the lives the
films portrayed. One of the best examples of this film style is THE MALTESE
FALCON, starring Humphrey Bogart as private eye Sam Spade. The action is fast,
the dialogue is snappy, and it always seems to be either night-time or raining
in usually sunny L.A.

Filmmaker Ridley Scott used this style when
he made his classic film adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s story “Do Androids
Dream of Electric Sheep?” as BLADE RUNNER. It’s always raining here, too, drenching
the teeming alleys of the dark, violent city, and weird surprises lurk in the
shadows. (Scott used darkness and shadows to the same, startling effect in
ALIEN.) In BLADE RUNNER, though, the noir
aspect conveys “lack of resources” as much as violence and sudden death. You
can imagine that those alleys are cold, as well as dark.

The universe of Fools Rush In has its own kind of darkness. Life in space,
especially for the book’s hero, pirate captain Sam Murphy, and the crew of his
ship Shadowhawk, is a constant battle
for scarce resources—energy, food, water, air, credits, spare parts. Sam lives
on the edge of legality, and he’s well-versed in the arts of negotiation,
smuggling, black-market trading, even outright theft. He’s very comfortable in
that criminal underbelly so many noir films depict, and yet he is a man of
principle. He has his own code of ethics and standards of behavior. He follows
those standards himself and he demands them of his crew, even as they move
through some of the ugliest ports in galaxy.

The book’s heroine, Rayna Carver, has seen
her share of darkness, too. She works undercover as an agent for the
Interstellar Council for Abolition and Rescue, putting herself at risk in alien
slave labor facilities to help extract slaves, organize resistance and undertake
sabotage. She’s driven, dedicated and full of never-say-die enthusiasm.

But these two show more kickass
space opera DNA than world-weary film
noir characteristics. They meet their challenges head-on, with
swashbuckling brashness and bare-knuckled determination. It’s just not in
either one of them to give up or to surrender—even to each other!

So, given their penchant for action, Fools Rush In has plenty of space opera
fun along with its shadowy noir murders
and mysteries—space battles, fistfights, onboard explosions, even evil aliens.Somehow, Sam and Rayna seem to handle it all
with aplomb—and still find time for hot romance!

Here’s the official blurb for Fools Rush In:

She thought she had the toughest job in Rescue—

until the day she had to convert a pirate into
a hero.

Interstellar
Rescue “conductor” Rayna Carver is deep undercover on a slave ship bound for an
isolated region of space when the ship is attacked by pirates. Her liberator is
Captain Sam Murphy, a man known in the spacer bars to love only profit,
adventure and women.

But
Murphy hates a few things, too, chief among them slavers. Will it be enough to
gain his help for Rayna’s mission—ferreting out two spies bent on sabotaging an
arms factory to turn the tide in an alien civil war?

And, BTW, if you need to catch up on either of the two other books in the series, Unchained Memorywill be on sale for $0.99 on Amazon for one more day. Trouble in Mind will be on sale on Amazon for $0.99, just until tomorrow. Hurry to get yours!

Cheers,
Donna

Donna S.
Frelick has been a journalist, a Peace Corps Volunteer and an author of STAR
TREK fan fiction. She was an RWA® Golden Heart® Double Finalist in 2012 for the
first two novels in her contemporary SFR Interstellar Rescue series. Book 3 in the series, Fools Rush In, launches TODAY from INK’d Press.